An In/Out referendum and a Bill in this session: David Cameron has delivered

David Cameron has done what Eurosceptics wanted. He has offered an In/Out referendum and, so as to remove any doubts about his bona fides, he is pursuing the legislation now. I won’t repeat my complaints about the tendency of lobby journalists to look at the EU through the tinted glass of party management. I will observe only that, amid the hubbub about ‘Tory splits’, we are in danger of missing the magnitude of what is taking place.

The prime minister has declared that the issue of our EU membership won’t be left to the politicians and officials who got us into our present mess. It will instead be determined by the electorate as a whole. This is what 82 per cent of us say we want. It’s what I have dedicated my adult life to securing. It’s what Ukip was founded to achieve. Indeed, had an In/Out poll been offered a couple of years ago, it would almost certainly have been enough to persuade Ukip to throw in its lot with the Tories.

Human nature, of course, isn’t always rational. We become curiously attached to our battles, reluctant to accept when we’ve won them. When the referendum was announced, some observers doubted – or, at least, affected to doubt – that David Cameron meant it. Accordingly, he has published the legislation for any pro-referendum backbencher to take up as a Private Member’s Bill. If 100 MPs can be mustered, such a Bill can be forced to Second Reading. Voters will then be able to see who goes through which lobby, and weigh their support accordingly. We may be surprised by how many individual Labour and Lib Dem MPs back the idea of consulting the people: they have constituents too.

In any event, tomorrow’s division is now an irrelevance. The vote that matters is the one on the referendum Bill itself which, unlike the declaratory amendment to the Queen’s Speech, will have legislative force. Supporters of an In/Out vote, in all parties, should focus on that Bill when it comes.

My impression, having taken soundings this morning, is that most of the people for whom the EU is the main issue are now satisfied. The comment thread that follows will, of course, tell a different story. ‘We want a referendum now!’ Well, fine: and your plan to get Lib-Lab MPs to vote for one is…? ‘You can’t trust Cameron’s word!’ You don’t have to: he’s issued the sodding Bill, for Heaven’s sake. ‘No Parliament can bind its successor!’ All the more reason to re-elect the MPs who vote for an In/Out referendum and replace the ones who don’t.

‘I don’t understand something’, a Latvian MEP told me this morning. ‘Cameron supports a referendum on leaving the EU, yes? But Miliband and the other guy, the Liberal, they oppose it. So why don’t Eurosceptics attack Labour and the Liberals?’ I hope that, from now, they will.

There is nothing – literally nothing – else that the Tory leader could do in this Parliament to satisfy souverainistes. The BBC will naturally want to hear only from those who are disposed to find fault with anything he does – and such people can always be found – but don’t make the mistake of thinking that they speak for the broad mass of Eurosceptics.

Back in 2011, I offered a way to get to the In/Out referendum. The PM should, I suggested, pledge a vote during the next Parliament, to allow for an informed debate on whatever settlement has taken shape following the euro crisis. But, I added, he ought to move the relevant legislation in this session, so that there should be absolutely no doubt about his sincerity. For the past 18 months, Ukip friends have insisted that he would never do it. Well, guys, he has. You – and, more to the point, the electorate as a whole – have got what you were demanding. What part of ‘Yes’ don’t you understand?